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Talk of a Surprise in British Elections

LONDON — Three decades after its forerunner almost fractured the iron grip of Britain’s two big political blocs, the small centrist party is threatening an upset.

After Britain’s first-ever televised election debate, on Thursday, a dramatic jump for the centrist Liberal Democrats in opinion polls prompted The Sunday Times to compare the new popularity of the party’s leader, Nick Clegg, to that of the wartime prime minister, Winston Churchill.

The history of third parties in Britain, of course, is littered with false dawns. And with more than two weeks of campaigning left, poll findings putting the Liberal Democrats on an equal footing with Labour and the Conservatives could fall back as swiftly as they rose.

But 30 years after an earlier generation promised to “break the mold” of two-party politics, a surge toward the center could determine who ends up governing Britain after voting on May 6.

“We are in uncharted territory,” John Curtice, a professor of politics at Strathclyde University in Glasgow, said in a telephone interview. “We have never had this kind of polling during an election campaign. There has never been this kind of surge to the Liberal Democrats.”

Indeed, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the leader of the center-left Labour Party, said Sunday that he had lost the television debate on presentation and style. While telling the BBC that he won on “substance,” Mr. Brown conceded that the election was now “wide open.”

Mr. Brown criticized the policies of the Liberal Democrats, but the opposition center-right Conservatives, who entered the campaign as favorites, responded even more aggressively.

Their leader, David Cameron, 43, positioned himself as the candidate of change, only to find Mr. Clegg, also 43, stealing the best lines during Britain’s first televised election debate among party leaders.

Two more debates are scheduled — one this Thursday and the final one, on the economy, Thursday, April 29.

Capitalizing on popular disenchantment with politics, after a scandal over parliamentarians’ expenses, Mr. Clegg skillfully presented himself as the outsider. That seemed to strike a chord with those voters unwilling to restore Mr. Brown to power but unconvinced by Mr. Cameron.

Mr. Cameron has reason to be concerned about the Liberal Democrats’ surge. A moderate revival would probably deprive the Tories of victories in the south of England that are vital if he is to get elected.

If so, Mr. Brown might cling to his job, which helps explain why several Labour figures rushed to contrast Mr. Clegg’s strong performance to that of the less convincing Mr. Cameron.

Still, if the Liberal Democrats really develop momentum, Labour could suffer even more, potentially being pushed into third place.

Between them, Labour and the Conservatives have dominated political life for most of the last century, alternating in power under a first-past-the-post electoral system that encourages the creation of a clear majority and makes coalition all-but-impossible under normal conditions.

The old Liberal Party, one of the forerunners of the Liberal Democrats, was briefly in alliance with a minority Labour government in 1974. In 1981, a new centrist party formed an alliance with the Liberals that seemed to have a chance to gain real power.

Since that revival was crushed, the Liberal Democrats have made a slow but steady recovery from the depths; they entered the current election campaign with 63 parliamentary seats.

But the latest twist was beyond their expectations. “The TV debate was the moment David Cameron woke up to the reality that there is three-party politics — and it appeared to be a bit of a shock to him,” said Olly Grendor, former director of communications for the Liberal Democrats. “He appeared to have a game plan for dealing with Gordon Brown but not with Nick Clegg.”

Mr. Clegg is used to being underestimated. During the pugnacious weekly exchanges in Parliament known as Question Time, Mr. Clegg is relegated to junior status. He speaks after the gladiatorial contest between the prime minister and leader of the opposition, and usually has to contend with heckling from both bigger parties.

But during the debate, the telegenic Mr. Clegg appeared alongside the other potential prime ministers on equal terms, something none of his predecessors managed to do.

“You had a LibDem leader seen up there in the main debate with equal time and on an equal footing,” Ms. Grendor said. “Finally this was a recognition that this is a three-party fight.”

A YouGov poll by The Sunday Times of 1,490 people gave the Conservatives 33 percent of the electorate; with Labour at 30 percent and the Liberal Democrats at 29 percent, a statistical tie. A BPIX online survey of 2,149 people for The Mail on Sunday put the Liberal Democrats at 32 percent, one percentage point ahead of the Conservatives, with Labour at 28 percent.

But the Liberal Democrats know that their poll bounce has increased scrutiny of the policies and put pressure on them to respond to which party they might work with if neither the Conservatives nor Labour receives a working majority in Parliament. That is a topic they try hard to avoid discussing.

The challenges from the Tories are already under way, even though the Conservatives — like Labour — might ultimately need to try luring the Liberal Democrats into a coalition.

Mr. Clegg, who once worked as an official with the European Union, leads a party that supports closer European integration, which is generally unpopular in Britain. William Hague, the Conservative’s foreign affairs spokesman, told The Sunday Times that Mr. Clegg would “sign up for anything that has ever been on offer or proposed from the E.U.”

Professor Curtice, of Strathclyde University, said Mr. Clegg’s performance had changed the equation. “Nobody knows where this will go. But the most likely outcome is that the odds on a hung Parliament have been shortened.”